I’m using Docker to contain a WordPress site (on localhost) for a team demo project. Our setup includes:

• MySQL database hosted on Azure.
• WordPress files stored on GitHub, copied into the container’s WordPress folder during the build process.

Issue: The site is extremely slow (10+ seconds to load each page), including the admin page. Redis cache reduced the load time by a couple of seconds, but it’s still unacceptably slow.

Observation: When loading a page, the initial request (e.g., http://localhost/) remains in a ‘pending’ state for several seconds with no logs in the Docker container. Once the request resolves, the data is received, and the container logs the request.

Dockerfile:

# Use the official PHP image with Apache
FROM php:8.0-apache

# Use a bash shell for execution
SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-o", "pipefail", "-c"]

# Install dependencies
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends 
    bash-completion 
    bindfs 
    ghostscript 
    less 
    libjpeg-dev 
    libmagickwand-dev 
    libpng-dev 
    libxml2-dev 
    libzip-dev 
    mariadb-client 
    sudo 
    unzip 
    vim 
    zip 
    curl 
    && apt-get clean 
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Configure GD with JPEG and Freetype support
RUN docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype --with-jpeg 
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) gd

# Install PHP extensions
RUN docker-php-ext-install bcmath exif mysqli opcache soap zip 
    && pecl install redis 
    && docker-php-ext-enable redis

# Copy the WordPress files
WORKDIR /var/www/html
COPY src/ /var/www/html/

# Set ownership and permissions
RUN chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

# Expose ports for Apache
EXPOSE 80 443

# Start Apache in foreground
CMD ["apache2-foreground"]

docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'

services:
  wordpress:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./src:/var/www/html
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    networks:
      - wp-network
    depends_on:
      - redis
    dns:
      - 8.8.8.8
      - 8.8.4.4

  redis:
    image: redis:latest
    networks:
      - wp-network
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"
    dns:
      - 8.8.8.8
      - 8.8.4.4

networks:
  wp-network:
    driver: bridge

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

• Implemented Redis cache – minor improvement.
• Adjusted Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml to add volumes and DNS resolver – no significant impact.

Questions:

What could be causing the initial request to remain in a ‘pending’ state for so long?
Are there any optimizations or configurations I should consider to reduce the load times?
Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.